YCLSA on the 2018 Matric Results and the Joe Slovo Right to Learn Campaign

4 January 2019

The YCLSA (uFasimba) would like to take this moment to congratulate the class of 2018 for such encouraging results compared to the previous.

We pass this congratulatory message fully aware that others, especially those from the deepest of our rural areas wrote these exams under difficult conditions and without proper infrastructure and yet still managed to pull through.

We would also like to send a message of hope to those who did not make it, not to give up and make use of available re-write opportunities. The YCLSA is combat ready to assist both those who will be looking for access in institutions of higher learning and those who have not made it.¬†

We would also like to commend the educators, majority of those led by the progressive SADTU, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas who gave it all despite lack of support and adequate infrastructure to make their work more easier and quicker.

While we commend provinces that have improved in terms of results, Eastern Cape in particular, and those that have shown consistency in delivering good results, such as Gauteng and the Free State, we would like to caution against the logic of provincial rankings which does not take into cognisance the different conditions each province has to encounter nor should we plunge into Bachelor's degree "bean counting" and "percentaging" that gloss over the structural constraints in the education sector. These includes but not limited to, the number of schools and teachers in the province, the number of rural schools in a province which more often than not lack support and adequate infrastructure, such as scholar transport, as well the neo-liberal ideological offensive against the public schooling system.

In the context of our struggle for socialism, we have called for the control and ownership of the commanding heights of the economy by the people's state so that private profits are turned into national assets in general and national finances in particular to fund free education. We hope with this declaration of free quality education for the poor not just a fee-free education model.

If state-owned entities go about initial public offerings to raise money over and above the guarantees they get from National Treasury why do we find ourselves with a situation where poor kids still find it difficult to access education?¬†

Why is it difficult to introduce progressive taxation (taxing the rich and corporate entities) as a progressive reform for redistributive purposes, while it is easy to bail out private capital that is all for private accumulation and not about any public good?

If progressive reforms would occur in the education sector, we would not be mired into endless debates about where to get money to fund free education. The imminent problem we are likely to face if we do not turn the tide, is an explosion of student debt. It is against this background, we call on the writing-off of all student debts and no student loan book must be handed to private debt collectors.

We thus cannot afford to be held at ransom by a multi-million student loan industry that makes millions out of poor student's misery.¬† It is for this reason that we condemn Universities which sell student loan books to private debt dealers who harass indebted students’ day in day out.

The YCLSA will now be embarking on its annual Joe Slovo Right to Learn Campaign. This is a campaign that ensures that the doors of learning are opened for children of the poor and aimed improving the culture teaching and learning, invigorating ideological battles through struggles for curriculum transformation and commemorating the life and times of our revolutionary stalwart, comrade Joe Slovo. YCLSA foot soldiers, from branches, district, province and national leaders will be in all campuses to ensure students receive adequate support during registration. The YLCSA has declared 2019 as the year of the TVET sector. This is a National Congress resolution. We must hit the ground running in making sure that we make this resolution realizable.

Every YCLSA structure must be on the ground to selflessly assist poor learners. We call upon every young persons to join hands with the YCLSA in making sure that every poor young person who has to be at school gets access to education.¬†

It is through our collective effort not individual brilliance that true freedom can be attained. Socialism in our lifetime!!!